Sins Of The Father
by Synchronoise
Summary: OoTP. Snape finds out he has a daughter, a bullied and icy 4th year in his own House who has no desire to forgive and forget. She's focused on finding her mother's murderer, taking vengeance and proving herself to the world in general. But she's getting in over her head, and truthfully, both of them have to face their relationship head on before she gets herself killed.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Well, here it is. This is my first published story. I've written drabbles and done a few little pieces on my computer, and taken a writing course at my school, but I've never posted anything before. To say I'm nervous is an understatement. The Harry Potter fandom is a vast ocean and this is my little drop in the sea. I hope someone somewhere finds this worth reading despite a premise that I've seen done before and a lack of experience on my part. I've spent some time revising this, but I don't have a beta so I apologize for mistakes if they pop up. For the record Harry and co. are in their 5th year and this all takes place during Order Of The Phoenix.

I would just like to state, and I mean this, all constructive criticism is welcome. Nobody gets anything right on their first try. I know I will make mistakes, have areas I need to improve in and basically need a landslide of pointers. I fully accept this and I'm not going to treat any reviews as personal attacks. They aren't. Reviews, criticism, suggestions, ideas and comments are how an author grows.

But beyond that, even if you don't review, I want to thank you for reading this. I worked hard on this, and I hope that it's at least interesting to you. Thank you for your time.

* * *

Ice was not common in September.

It made it easy to find her, even if you weren't looking for her specifically. Of course, there was a reason why the Muggleborn of Slytherin had taken refuge outside to practice magic. She had learned a spell that turned the hands of anyone who touched her luggage glacial blue, and so before the first class of the first day had started she had been in trouble with her house Head for 'excessive use of magic'. Trust him not to give her any pity, for Muggleborns were no friends of his, but now that the first day was over she could get back to the work she wasn't allowed to do at home.

Home. Home for her was a tiny village called Uyeasound on the northernmost of the Shetland Islands in Scotland. Home was a small place where she knew each person by name, where they greeted her return from her 'boarding school for the gifted' with smiles and presents. They were an extended family there. In Uyeasound she was not allowed to use magic, being the first witch born there in over a century, but there she didn't need it to defend herself. She had no enemies there. To say she loved it is to say that a starving person sort of likes food. Yet as good of a home as she had come from, bottling up magic was hard. Three full months of forcing down every impulse and praying each slip up wouldn't earn her a court order before the Ministry of Magic was like trying to told her breath in. Now, finally, she could exhale, grip her wand in her left hand, let the familiar hum of magic flow through her, and let it all out. Magic was a home, too. With a muttering of words and a thrust of a wand all the grass around her turned gray and silver, coated over with frost; she had made a circle of winter. A step back and a turn, icicles impaled themselves through the trees at the edge of the forest with a single word.

Though the magic was beautiful, the girl was not. Her body was thin, too thin, the result of a condition her pride had her refuse to seek help for, but she held her head high even if she was gangly and flat chested, supported by her own internal pride. Tall and long limbed, her light mouse brown hair was cut as short as a boy's, her eyes dull gray, unreadable. The ice around her was extensive and thick, a strange area in which she excelled. As the sole Muggleborn in Slytherin, she was reminded daily and extensively of all the ways she failed and all the things she did wrong. Her one area of skill was honed to a fine point to keep her pride alive. Technically, though it was evening, she was still allowed out. The rules prohibited anyone being out after dark, and she'd learned through trial and error how much she could bend that rule. She didn't care if she wasn't pretty, she was skilled, and one day, she'd rise above all this.

When she saw Dumbledore approaching, she dropped her arms to her sides, letting her red oak wand slip into her pocket, though of course an eleven inch wand stuck out a bit regardless. Her breath was coming in a bit fast from the exertion of spell after spell, but she tried to straighten up and look respectable to the Headmaster. In all her time at Hogwarts, this being the start of her fourth year, Dumbledore had been kind and exceptionally good to her. He had reduced her punishments more than once after talking to Professor Snape; Dumbledore understood that her birth and her house made life hard. While she wouldn't say he played favorites, he knew how to make an exception when circumstances called for it. In the dim light of the fading summer evening his beard and robes almost appeared to glow. If she were sentimental she might honestly say Albus Dumbledore was vaguely fatherly to her.

"Hello, sir. I was just practicing some spellwork, sir."

No one ever accused her of sentimentality. She hated emotional thoughts, and endeavored to push them away from herself. She told herself she was above it. Really, it was just for protection in case yet another person turned out not to be safe to show emotion to. But her politeness was soft spoken to Dumbledore. She never addressed him with the icy vehemence she'd learned to use on Pureblood Slytherins who hated her. He was someone she respected from the first time she'd landed in his office and he'd actually heard out her side of the story before passing judgment.

"Miss Connor, you have once again missed dinner." There was unspoken disapproval in the look in his blue eyes. She stared right back at him, not so much as twitching in guilt, because she was curious. The Headmaster didn't come over to a student because they skipped a meal. There had to be more. "If you would come with me, I'm afraid we have much graver issues to address."

He turned and began to walk towards the castle, the crunch of the frosted and frozen landscape she'd created audible underneath both their feet as she followed. She spoke up, tone polite and neutral as always. "Sir, if this is about the death of my mother, I already sent an owl to you, about a month ago, sir, explaining I'll be living with my aunt Jessica."

"It pertains to your mother, Miss Connor," he acknowledged with a nod of his head. "And I am terribly sorry for your loss. However, I don't wish to say any more on the matter where it might be made public. Simply trust me when I say this must be handled delicately."

She nodded. She did trust him. She trusted Professor Dumbledore, her friend Qendrim a year above her (and in Ravenclaw, to boot) and her friend Ivalu, a year below her and, Salazar forbid, a Gryffindor. She had a small circle of people she knew wouldn't turn on her. After a grueling first year of being pranked, spat upon literally and figuratively, bullied and left without anyone to turn to, she had begun to change. The coldness in her gray eyes was something that had come with time, that had developed as she learned to fight back. Qendrim had been in the same boat of bullying, although not as extreme, for being foreign. They had spent her second year developing a cautious trust of one another, helping each other fight back against bullies. She failed at all Potions, so if her things happened to have a bottle of corked Laughing Elixir fermented and ready to go off, of course it wasn't her fault. He was bad at offensive spells, so if trying to mess with his food resulted in a frozen hand, of course it wasn't him. Ivalu had come into their fold a year later, picked on but brave, ready to take on the world armed with cheerfulness and an unbreakable spirit.

Her friends had likely told the Headmaster where she was. It wouldn't have taken much to see she wasn't at the Great Hall to eat, but she could normally count on them to cover for her. That meant this must be something serious. She ran her mind through the possibilities. Expulsion was the immediate fear. It was also unlikely because she simply hadn't had time to get into a fight with even the snobbiest of her housemates. Had something happened to Qendrim or Ivalu? Doubtful, they were both model students except when pushed by bullies, and she swore Qendrim could be nominated for sainthood if it weren't for the whole magic thing. The Headmaster had said it had to do with her mother. Her mother's will she had gone over with her aunt and grandfather a month ago; everything was settled on that front from a legal point of view. There was nothing left to do but move on from her mother's murder, even if the thought of it made her left hand twitch for her wand, aching to blast something in a mixture of grief, anger and pain she didn't know how else to express.

All the way up to Dumbledore's office, she was confused. He spoke the words 'cream puffs' and that was, apparently, this week's password. She was too deep in thought to even giggle at it as they ascended the stairs to his office proper, where the usual array of fascinating magical devices were scattered about his desk and on the shelves alongside thick magical tomes. Fawkes tilted his head at her, curiously. This warm toned, normally comforting place, however, was marred by the presence of Professor Snape. He sat in a chair in front of the Headmaster's desk like a punished child. His expression was unreadable, but there was something different in how he looked at her, a certain way he took her in that made her feel on edge. She was glad she hadn't eaten anything, or she'd be getting nauseous right about now. Ignoring his staring, she sat down in the chair placed beside his and focused her attention on Dumbledore, whose face was solemn and serious. Most students had a hard time pretending Snape wasn't in the room, but she'd had three years of practice, and was exceptionally good at talking and acting as if that horrid man were nowhere to be found.

"Miss Connor, I know that you must still be reeling from the death of your mother. My heart goes out to you," Dumbledore said sincerely. Her left hand loosely gripped her wand's base for comfort. "I understand that now is not the time, and you do not wish to discuss this. You must heal in your own way, on your own time. Despite my desire to leave this matter well enough alone, however, certain matters have recently been brought to my attention which means we must address this now."

He paused. She said nothing. Snape said nothing. They both managed not to so much as glance at each other. This was the point she was supposed to ask questions, but she would do no such thing in the presence of Professor Snape. He shot her down in and out of class every time she asked something. He was as much a bully, as much a daily endurance and nuisance, as anyone else in her House. If he thought she would give him the satisfaction of opening her mouth, he had another thing coming. Time had taught her exactly the kind of man he was.

Dumbledore continued after a stretch of silence, "I know you were raised by your mother, and not as part of the magical community. This does not mean she was ignorant to the magical world; like most parents of Muggleborns, she accompanied you to Diagon Alley. Tell me, Miss Connor, do you remember a point in time where she left you to try out wands while she attended to other business?"

Slowly, she nodded. She still wasn't going to risk speaking in front of Snape. It had taken her a while to find a wand, although that had been in part because of a few other first years in front of her, and her mother had been back in time to see her frost the windows over with a swish of her red oak, dragon heartstring wand. That was a good memory, a good time, back before she had been Sorted and everyday began to feel like an uphill battle.

"What she did, which was done for your legal protection, is fill out a wizarding will in case anything should happen to her before you came of age. She wished for you to be protected in both the eyes of the Muggle and Magical law. Part of this agreement, which she paid for in advance, was that upon her death a paternity test was to be run via magic to see if your father was a wizard."

Snape would love that. Going off of the fact he still wouldn't look at her, she was guessing that no, her father wasn't. She was fine with that; always had been. Let her be the Muggleborn spell creator who rose through the ranks of Slytherin through ambition and determination. She was fine with that being who and what she was. At this point it was something she was fiercely proud of even if her existence horrified her housemates. One day she would be an Auror and her parentage would be a side note in the story of her life. Let the test tell her that her father was still a mystery, a nameless faceless Muggle somewhere out there in the great wide world. She didn't need a father, all she needed her friends, her wand and some time, and she would make her own way through the world. She had the ambition and the strength to do it with time and nothing would stop her. Her mother had awkwardly explained the one night stand that led to her birth to her long ago, and she was alright with that. Her mother had loved her enough to make up for a disappeared dad.

"I won't attempt to explain the intricacies of the test or the specifics. It was no cheap endeavor, but she left you no debt. What she did leave you was a revelation of sorts." Dumbledore peered over his glasses into her eyes, serious as a heart attack. "Your biological father is Severus Snape."

There was a pause. Her mouth fell open, but no sound came out. Panic spiked within her. That cruel cold ex-Death Eater, her father? The man who let bullying go on in his house without much more than an occasional intervention, the man who assigned homework by the foot, who never seemed to leave the dungeon, was related to her? No. _No_. She was nothing like him. She stood up to bullies, she had friends in two other houses, she aspired to more than the walls of Hogwarts, she didn't give a damn about blood or lineage. She was no more related to this man than the sun was to the moon. Panic turned to outrage and she stood up abruptly, holding her head high and drawing herself to the most height a girl of five foot four built like a bundle of sticks could.

"There must have been a mistake," she said, and, because this might be her only chance to ever insult Snape and not get detention for it, she rushed on, "I'm nothing like him at all. I have standards."

He flinched. A small flinch, but a victory nonetheless. Good; he could consider that payback for three years of being ignored and being left to fend for herself. Dumbledore looked grim and simply pulled a scroll seemingly out of the air to present for her to read. She took the parchment, expression defiant. What followed was the closest to an emotional breakdown she'd had in years. Her eyes grew wide, her breath hitched and she paled. Her hands shook. Unfortunately, even so she could read the cursive script upon the scroll clearly.

_Simone Yseult Connor is hereby confirmed to be the daughter of Paisley Ann Connor and Severus Tobias Snape._

She held it out to Dumbledore. Voice shaking, she managed a mostly confident-ish sounding, "I don't see what this has to do with me. I'm going to live with my aunt. The legal matters are sorted out. This is just… just… trivia. And _trivial_."

Snape looked hurt for a fraction of a second before his face resumed a neutral expression. Though their hair and eyes were different, though she was much paler than he was and their faces were shaped differently, they wore identical masks of not caring. Their eyes were purposefully devoid of expression, their jaws set, their breathing controlled, identical disdain and apathy forced onto both faces. Before now it had never been clear to Albus just how very fake that look was on either of them. But it protected them, delayed the impact of emotions and implications they had to face when eventually the gravity of the situation hit them. How eerie it was, to see them mirror one another without ever knowing it. In another life, under other circumstances, the two of them could have laughed about it, had it as a running joke. As it stood now, it was nothing short of sad.

"If it's alright with you, Headmaster, I'd like to go back to my dormitory. I have some reading to do for the start of History of Magic tomorrow." She was proud of how steady she kept her tone, but she wasn't good enough to keep a waver out of the end words. Still, it was strikingly Snape-like to the Headmaster's eyes, and a glance over at the Professor showed he had picked up on it, too, cringing visibly.

Dumbledore looked between them for a long moment. Neither Simone nor Snape looked at each other. It was as if they were already engaged in a standoff of sorts. He sighed, and nodded his consent. "Very well. Your friend Miss Augaviq saved you some dinner. I had it brought to your dormitory. Do remember to eat it. I do not wish to have to put Slytherin's Head Girl on food watch for any more students than she already is."

With this much anxiety and emotion boiling up within her, she'd be lucky to make it to the bathroom on this floor before puking. The food had a snowball's chance in Hell of being eaten and half that of staying that if she did manage to shove it down her throat. She nodded regardless, food the farthest thing from her mind right now, and left without a word, only clutching her stomach and breathing in deeply when she had cleared the staircase and was headed for the bathroom. By some miracle, the hallways were empty and she could allow herself to fall apart in the privacy of a stall in peace, the way she knew how. And if, as her stomach rejected everything including the panic and anxiety into the toilet bowl, some tears formed in her eyes, Simone told herself it was only because she was throwing up.

Up above in Dumbledore's office, the Headmaster placed a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder as Snape buried his face in his hands, shutting his eyes as tightly as he could.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** Thank you so much to my reviewers, both the two anonymous reviewers who got reviews in at amazing speed, which really made my morning, and lightbabe, who actually inadvertently helped make me realize how to write this better without even realizing it! I'd been told by people online the Harry Potter fandom could be vicious, but so far I've seen nothing other than nice, genuine encouragement from people. I would like to thank the six people - _six!_ - who put my story in their favorites on the sole basis on chapter one alone. That's such a massive compliment to me, given the first chapter was a lot of exposition and one long scene, which I know can be a turn off. Thank you also to the kind person who put this story on their alerts list. This flood of support really helped push me to brave putting out the second chapter so soon.

I'd like to apologize for some exposition and lengthy setting up of background characters, as I know that makes this longer than it strictly needs to be. However, I feel it will help set up these characters up for later chapters, establish Simone had a lovely life with her mom in Uyeasound, and help show without resorting to flashbacks how Simone has been bullied. I'm sorry if it goes on too long, but after this chapter everything kicks into high gear with both the Snape plot and the revenge plot mentioned in the summary. Hopefully this doesn't drag on you. I promise, it gets better.

As always, constructive criticism is welcome, as are suggestions, questions, opinions and ideas. Feel free to tell me how I can do better. I'm new and I'm eager to learn.

* * *

After she cleaned herself up enough to make it back to the girls' fourth year dormitory, she found most of the girls in the common room hovering around Lynette Bronwyn, the most talented Divination student in the school.

Though only a fifth year, Lynette was in seventh year level Divination classes, and so all the students unlucky enough to be stuck with the subject this year were crowded around her for pointers. Lynette's auburn hair was like fire and her eyes were permanently star struck hazel. All the Slytherin girls relentlessly used her as a way to get through Divination with passing grades or, if they believed in that sort of stuff, a way to hear about their future. Already plain, Simone was virtually invisible when Lynette was doing her thing in the common room. This allowed her to slip up to her dorm, pull the curtains around her bed, and use the Teleportation Charm she'd been taught last year on the food in front of her. The trick was to put the food on some thick parchment first so the plate, utensils and tray would still be there. Her Prefect (it was Viviana Tregereth this year, the brunette with her hair in three buns and glasses over her almond shaped cerulean eyes) would be fooled into thinking she'd eaten most of it.

Simone had been diagnosed with a unique form of EDNOS during Christmas break during her first year at Hogwarts. It wasn't bulimia, because bulimia was a_ willing_ ejection of food. What she had instead was a potent mixture of an anxiety disorder and a bad coping mechanism. Being teased, bullied, injured and continually having to protect everything she had made her an anxious wreck, and she had begun to avoid the Dining Hall in order to avoid a table full of Slytherins. Her mind had subconsciously began associating food with anxiety. This was furthered when a girl named Eileen Worsham had pretended to be kind to her and given her food laced with a Burning Elixir, a substance normally used to raise the temperature of those with hypothermia. Simone had spent two days puking and burning up, too afraid to go to the Infirmary and miss classes and lose points.

Ever since then, solid food refused to stay inside her. Unless she was completely engrossed in something else, any problem or stressor made her want to throw up. Liquids would stay down, almost without exception. Solid food was a ticking time bomb. And thus she weighed a hundred and ten pounds at five foot four, even though she tried to drink as many smoothies and protein shakes as possible, which she brought in bulk in powder form from London each year. The problem was simply that the stress never seemed to stop. She had actually weighed eighty two pounds at one point, but her friends helped pull her back from that near-death weight, Qendrim making her Calming Potions as fast as he could brew them and as much as they could afford it. Ivalu tried her best to get food to her early in the morning and late at night when it was likely to digest more. But in the end, she knew she was a pathetic, broken girl.

She pulled the curtain back, set the tray on the nightstand, and then closed it again, pulling out a piece of normal Muggle notebook paper from a pack she kept under her bed. Her owl, Ian, was an Ashy Faced Owl whose rare breed had actually made him undesirable to buyers. She had gotten him because his orange tinged russet brown color was like the hair of her best friend on Earth, Ramsay Toal, back in Uyeasound. Though the trip from Hogwarts was long and he couldn't be allowed to find out she was a witch, she and her Aunt Jessica had figured out a system that worked. Ian would drop the letter off to the post office where Jessica worked and she'd deliver it to Ramsay herself. They corresponded on a weekly basis ever since she first came to Hogwarts. Although she could never tell him about Purebloods and magic and the Houses, she could tell him about being bullied, how so many students here were old money and she was just a middle class nothing to them, how they took her things and one of her teachers hated her. And he always wrote back, not just with support and encouragement, but with off color jokes and news about what was going on back home and all the little things that meant nothing and everything at the same time.

But how could she write and tell him the teacher who made her dread waking up some days was also her father?

She stared at the notebook paper for a long time, until girls started coming back up for bed. Simone sighed, putting her paper back, throwing her robe off and onto the edge of the bed, where she'd put it on in the morning. Right now she didn't care about neatness. She wasn't sure what to think, what to feel, what was even the right way to act right now – the best she could do was try and act like everything was normal, but at breakfast her friends would want to talk to her. And what could she tell them? How could she bring herself to utter the words Snape and father in the same sentence? She laid awake long after the lights were out and all was still, contemplating.

When she fell into sleep, it was a brief, dreamless affair that left her more drained than if she had been awake all night.

* * *

Ivalu was one of those people up before dawn with enough energy to light the world on fire.

Simone was an early riser so she could go practice the spells she was making outside, but she also had to drink a cup of black coffee from the common room before she was awake enough for that. Ivalorsuaq Augaviq was a girl who never, ever tired. It was a strange gift, and an irritating one when the Greenlandic girl waved to her from the grounds, a box of what could only be food in her hands. Her black hair fell to her thighs, but being only four feet and eleven inches tall, it made her look smaller, somehow. Her inky doe eyes lit up as she held out the box to her Slytherin friend, smiling.

"I talked to one of the House Elves and he brought some stuff I know you like. So maybe it'll stay down better that way. The elves are so nice. I'm glad that he – I think his name is Dobby? – I'm glad Dobby didn't think it was a big deal." She reached over and took Simone's wand, handing over the box. "And I'm getting better at that charm you taught me to keep things warm. This year is going to be great, Sim."

Simone opened the box, and though she didn't smile, her lips twitched a bit. Ivalu knew her enough to know that was the best she could hope for. Together they walked to away from the castle doors, sitting by a castle wall to eat and talk, Sim eating, Ivalu talking about her class schedule and Qendrim's new broom and other things that filled the air with companionable silence. Something about Ivalu was inherently comforting. Having her near made the anxiety twisting through her stomach fade enough to eat her way through thick oat scones, soft jelly bread rolls and a potato pancake with ketchup. The warm food helped with the chilly morning. Much to Ivalu's joy, Sim finished the box altogether and handed it back.

"You had them make Scottish oat scones?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at her younger friend.

"Oh, no. Remember how you forgot your owl at home? He came flying in to my dorm with a load of these from Ramsay." Ivalu beamed. "He's such a good boyfriend for you."

"We're just friends." Simone didn't want to contemplate falling in love with a Muggle and having to explain the magical world to him.

"Now, maybe. But anyway, Ian's in my room. He and my owl are sleeping in the same cage again. I think we should be on the lookout for eggs." Ivalu looked delighted at the idea of a baby owl. "Can a Northern White Faced Owl and an Ashy Faced Owl have a baby?"

"No idea. They're about the same size… why don't you ask that super smart girl in your House, Hermione whatever-her-last-name-is? I've never seen her not know something." Sim remembered once asking Hermione about spell creation. The bushy haired girl had guided her through the library better than the librarian ever had and gotten her four books on the subject. Though Hermione was no fan of Slytherins, the Muggleborn of Slytherin was an exception, and she seemed eager to share knowledge.

Former Muggleborn of Slytherin, Simone realized, and her face fell. She handed the box back to Ivalu, taking back her red oak wand. A wave of anxiety rolled through her, but she would not throw up. She would not ruin this morning. Focusing on her anger, Sim took a step forward, threw her left hand out and snapped, "_Frangoros!_" The dew from the grass and the water from the cup in Ivalu's hand all shot forward into a solid blast, forming ice in under a second and flying ahead. Devoid of a target, the blast flew a good fifty feet before losing momentum and impaling the ground in shards. It was satisfying, but it wasn't enough, so she stormed away, looking for more dew to throw at something. She needed to do some damage. No amount of impacts would be enough until she could get the image of Snape out of her head, that cold eyed unfeeling Death Eater prejudice _monster_-

Ivalu grabbed her by the wand wrist. It was the safest way to grab a witch or wizard in distress, as they couldn't whirl around and blast the grabber. Her inky eyes were locked on Simone's cloudy gray ones, but Sim couldn't meet her eyes now, couldn't get through this news and see the disgust on her friend's face. "Sim, what's wrong?"

"Ivalu… what did Dumbledore say to you yesterday?" she asked carefully, voice a thousand miles away, focusing on the distant horizon to keep her composure.

Qendrim's voice answered as he approached. He had a full case of six vials of Calming Potion in one hand, already prepped. Potion brewing didn't count as magic, so he could do it at home and come in loaded. "Dumbledore said he needed to find you. He said it was important, it was a legal issue and it involved your mother. What set off this spell?" The dark chocolate haired, caramel skinned Albanian boy knew her tells as well as Ivalu did. His moss green eyes glistened with concern, the early morning light not dulling their brilliant color. "You don't break out the ice ones this early unless you're really upset."

"Dumbledore found out who my father is. It was in my mom's will. Some kind of spell or procedure they have can do it, it's just expensive. But my mom didn't want me to be without a legal guardian, I guess, if something happened to Aunt Jess and my grandfather." She forced each word out like she was trying to explain a travesty, a crime, but for the next few words she shut her eyes so tight it hurt and blurted out, "Professor Snape's my biological father."

The word 'biological' cushioned it a lot for her, yet it wasn't enough. She stood there, eyes shut, shaking ever so slightly, feeling her stomach churn, waiting for them to react. For a second she almost threw up and choked it back down. The faint taste of oats made her want to go find Ramsay, sit on his bed talking and spilling it all out, looking into his perfect sepia eyes, but he was a world away and she was trapped here, trapped in this moment, trapped in a lineage she hoped and prayed would never become public. Sim was so wrapped up in the vortex within her that when Ivalu hugged her, she didn't register it for a full four seconds. She half turned, and then Qendrim had an arm around her, smiling an accepting smile.

"It's okay, Sim. This doesn't change anything," he told her, calm and logical as always.

"This changes everything," she shot back, unable to meet his eyes.

"No, it doesn't. You're still you." Ivalu told her, not letting go. "Everybody thinks I'm crazy to have a friend in Slytherin. Everybody thinks Qendrim is crushing on one or both of us. Everything's the same as it was last year. Nothing's different between us, just between you and the Professor."

"Which is what really bothers you," Qendrim realized aloud. Sim nodded. "Well, I'm not sure how this will go. But you're never alone, Sim. You've got us, whether you like it or not. This is my family at school. Nothing will change that."

Somehow, just him saying that made it seem a little less like the world was ending.

* * *

Sim got her bag and books together, and the day blurred by before slamming to a halt in Potions.

As usual, Professor Snape was there. As usual, she prepared to slink into the back row with Akakios Thornton, a pointy featured boy in her year whose dream career was a job at St. Mungo's as a doctor. He was the best student in Potions in their year, and for reasons she never quite understood, he partnered with her continually. This was most likely because she didn't express much emotion, so she didn't panic if something went wrong. She was so bad at Potions by herself she would have failed every year without his help. They even studied together sometimes, and while not exactly friends, he was an ally. She needed each of those she could get in Slytherin.

But as she sat down beside Akakios, noting he'd begun spiking his dark wine red hair this year, Professor Snape cleared his throat. She looked at him incredulously. She couldn't be in trouble in class already – people were still walking in, for Merlin's sake! The fact her immediate reaction was akin to bracing for a blow was not lost on him, and his lips twisted into a frown. Not his usual sneer; a true frown, one of disapproval for himself.

"Miss Connor, would you please move to the front and take a seat in the first row?" he asked, far more politely than he had ever asked such a question before.

She looked at Akakios, who was frowning in confusion but already packing up his stuff to move with her. "Yes sir."

Together they moved to the front of the classroom, and though she had hoped he would keep his focus on Akakios, given he was a Potions prodigy in the making, her wish was not granted. As he wrote out how to create a potion they'd been assigned towards the end of last year, probably to test out how much they retained, she could feel her stomach turn and twist. She kept glancing at the clock. She'd just have to hold it, or die trying. She wasn't going to hand all of Slytherin and Gryffindor's fourth years ammunition to mock her with. Especially not with Snape three feet from her at all times. She assisted Akakios almost on automatic, cold sweat beading on her forehead, feeling Snape's eyes on her every movement. She didn't want to mess up in front of him. She didn't want to even be here. She just wanted this day to end. She had so much more important things to be doing.

Sim made it through the Potions class intact, but before she could escape to lunch, Professor Snape asked she stay behind. At this point her stomach curdled and she was gripping her desk so hard her knuckles were turning white. She looked up at him with eyes half filled with pain and half filled with dread. He was unreadable as always. Alright, so he had a better pokerface than her – or maybe there was nothing there to be hidden. She didn't care. She needed out of here and she needed it immediately. She slipped her hand into her robe pocket and pulled out a small flask of water. Trust wizards not to go with plastic water bottles like the rest of the world, but she needed a Calming Potion and she needed it now. She downed the whole thing while eyeing him with a mixture of disdain and confidence. Once this kicked in she would be his equal in coldness and they would stand on an even battleground again.

"Simone-" he started.

"I believe it's common policy to address students by their surnames." She maintained a polite tone, as if she were talking about the weather. Ah, there was the cool rush of the potion, firmly moving down her throat, into her stomach, soothing over dangerous and embarrassing pains. Sim straightened up. "Sir, my performance today was easily the best I have ever executed in your class. I see no reason for reprimand."

"I'm not going to reprimand you, Miss Connor. I simply wished to know if you would want to explain the full plate's worth of food Miss Tregereth found in the common room's trash?"

She could have stayed silent, but there were three years of anger unaddressed, and no Calming Potion could restrain that. "Don't you have a Death Eater meeting to get to?"

His eyes narrowed to slits. "I am not a Death Eater."

"Well, you won't be if they find out about me," she muttered dryly. He took a deep, calming breath. She held up a hand to stop him. "You didn't care when I was walking around poisoned for two days. You didn't let me go to the Infirmary when Helios Markesan burned my right arm. You didn't come see me when I was _in_ the Infirmary in my second year, when I weighed my lowest. You took forty points off of a test of mine once when Andra Zabini had switched the parchment I was using with joke parchment that aged before you could get it back to me. And you suddenly care if I had _dinner_?"

Her voice was that of a sane person asking a madman why he was drawing on the wall with crayons. Snape couldn't meet her eyes. She stood up, picking up her bag and books. "Simone-"

"Severus." She just wanted to see how he'd react. Normally she wasn't so petty, but three years of moments he should have been there made her so angry the Calming Potion was doing good to keep her food down.

"_Simone,"_ he insisted, voice firm, "I am trying to be the bigger man and repair this bridge you so insist on keeping burnt, even if I did start the fire."

"Then you owe me a few favors." A plan formed in her head, and she looked him dead in the eye. She might not want him as a father, but he could be useful as a tool, a stepping stone towards what she needed to get done. That was what Severus Snape was to her, then: not a monster, not an ally, just a temporarily usable person she could never let herself trust until he began to prove he deserved it. "I need you to help me find my mother's murderer."

He looked confused, now, staring into her surprisingly dark and anguished gray eyes with his black as tunnel ones. Professor Snape paused before asking, "Why would I be able to do that, S- Miss Connor? You two lived in a Muggle village very far out of the way, as I understand it."

Simone's voice was glacial. "A Death Eater killed her. I saw it with my own eyes. And I won't rest until he's dead or worse. Preferably worse."


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Thank you to the new follower I have and the new person who favorited. I wish one of you wrote stories so I could give reviews or something back in return for this kind of attention and encouragement. This chapter we see Snape trying to parent and not doing it perfectly, but he's very much doing everything out of a place of good intentions. We also get to see Simone's already bad behavior start to edge into dangerous territory.

Next chapter, we get more of a time lapse and things progress forward much more rapidly. But in the meantime, constructive criticism, feedback, comments, ideas, questions, thoughts, suggestions and anything else you'd like to say is always appreciated. The only way I can become a better author is through being told what they do wrong and what they need to do. Thank you all again for reading!

* * *

"Magic would have set off the alarms at the Ministry," Snape began, but Simone, apparently having held this in for a good month, launched into a diatribe that blew all his objections out of the water immediately.

"The Ministry has had problems before with registering when foreign magic is used if it's obscure enough. Look at how much magic Qendrim used the summer after his first year in self defense – only the Hogwarts taught spells pinged their radar. The Albanian ones his family taught him didn't. I was a few houses away when the house was broken into, but I heard the noise and came running. When I got there, not a word of what that man was saying was Latin based like England's usual spells are. I don't know what it was, but it was completely different. He stopped when I pulled out my wand – I guess he didn't think there'd be a witch in Uyeasound – and he ran. I should have chased him, but I needed to try and help my mother…" She shut her eyes and took deep, calming breaths to maintain calm. "So the logical conclusion is that Death Eaters have, or at least some of them have, access to spells that are picked specifically not to be trackable by the Ministry of Magic."

Snape was finally taking her seriously. She'd never seen the gears in someone's mind turning faster. His eyes went wide and then narrow. "But why attack a Muggle in Uyeasound?"

"Qendrim's theory is that it's because Uyeasound is so remote. If they'd done it in London and a spell _had_ registered at the Ministry, they'd be buried under Aurors before they could Apparate away. You do that same crime in the northernmost town of the northernmost island of Scotland, and even if a spell _is_ traceable, you have a lot of time to get out before someone gets on the scene." Simone looked him in the eyes, desperately. "I'm not crazy. I saw a Death Eater. And they're up to something. Now, if you're really not a Death Eater anymore – don't give me that look, I said it to get a rise out of you, not because I really think it – then you should be able to help me. I want a list of names of the people who used to be Death Eaters who didn't go to Azkaban. We all know there's a bunch of them."

There was a pause. He looked at her with something like pride and sympathy, and she realized tears had welled up in her eyes just thinking about the man who had tortured her mother to death. No killing spell had been used, it was a culmination of at least four separate ones she'd heard shouted out, and the screams still had her waking up night after night shaking. Maybe Snape hadn't cared when he heard some Muggle he used to know had died under suspicious circumstances, but now that he knew a Death Eater had used her as a guinea pig for under the radar spells it was different. Now that he saw that Muggle's daughter – _his_ daughter – standing there barely keeping it together, it became real.

But he couldn't let a fourteen year old girl go down this path. Revenge was potent, blinding, and corrupting. As much as she desired it, as much as her mother deserved justice, she would never move on if this obsession was allowed to continue. She was fourteen, she should be thinking about boys and listening to Wizard Rock and spending time with her friends, even if they weren't Slytherins. At her age teenagers cared about clothes and being cool, not murder, crime solving and Death Eater plots. He didn't want her to lose herself in this, drown herself in the approaching second war with Voldemort. He didn't want her so involved she would fight a Death Eater, because he had just gotten her, he couldn't lose her s swiftly afterwards. He just couldn't take it.

No, this information needed to go to Dumbledore and to the Order, because she was right in that off-the-grid spells were a danger they hadn't even thought of, one that could be a game changer. She was wrong to assume she could emotionally blackmail her own father into letting her be part of this fight. And so Snape did what every parent has to do: be the bad guy to protect his child.

"I will make sure this information reaches proper channels," he told her, voice firm and quiet. "I will not give you a single name, however, nor will I help you in this endeavor. It does not do the mind good to dwell on loss, no matter how much you loved who you have lost." He thought of Lily, the way he still woke up haunted by her visage, and his eyes softened. "I'll also ignore that you apparently carry Calming Potions in your flask. I used to keep small projects in mine; the house colors disguise what's inside very well. But I have to know who you buy these from. When incorrectly made, they can be toxic."

"He's made them right for three years, I think he's got it," she said, voice angry, hurt, even. "You're really not going to help me? This isn't just anyone, this is my mother. This is about family. This is everything to me!"

"And that is what worries me, Simone."

"It's Miss Connor to you," she snapped, still crestfallen her plan had failed so miserably, and she grabbed her bag and spun on her heel, leaving the room without another word.

* * *

"The professor's right, you know," Qendrim told her as she practiced one of her newer spells.

It was one that only worked if she was angry, and judging by how well it was going, he had not just helped her mood. "I'm going to be an Auror someday. I've read all the books, I've practiced every defensive spell, I could have this guy thrown in front of a court for a dozen charges if I could get ahold of him. I know what I'm doing."

The Albanian boy sighed. "And I suppose you're not going to stop even though he spelled out exactly why it's a bad idea?"

"It's a great idea. No one takes me seriously. I'm a girl, I look younger than I am, people think I'm harmless. Doubly so for Ivalu, and she's the one who's more familiar with the library. If we three pool our resources, we can find this guy and bring him to justice. This is a matter of national security, Qendrim. We can't just sit on our asses and do nothing." She was not merely determined, she was also stubborn. It was a potent combination that did not allow for perfectly logical suggestions to sink in. "All we need now is to come up with a plan."

"And do you have one?" He asked, almost dreading the answer. He was taking the September heat as an opportunity to take out and stir some potion ingredients together. He was enviable in skill at creating new potions, but what she valued and hated most was his ability to often be the only sane man in their group of friends.

"I'm working on it. Some eavesdropping and favors will have to be called in, but I know I can get a lead. I just need to try harder."

"You think you can take on a fully grown wizard who knows the Dark Arts and spells you've never heard of, and win? Honestly?" He looked up at her with a hard logic in his moss green eyes. He was aware of the ludicrous nature of his friend, that can-do spirit that made her fight for her dreams and always dream big. It was why she was a Slytherin. It was also absolutely insane the degree she took things to, and he was glad that contrary to school rumors, he wasn't crushing on her. He'd worry to death if he was. "You're a good witch, and you'll make a better Auror than most anyone I can think of, but you have limits."

"I create my own spells, remember? I'll be going in with things he's never even heard of. And not all my spells are just ice based. I'll just spend time practicing on the physical ailment spells in the meantime. Besides, I could work on translating that old Albanian spellbook you gave me for my birthday last year. Fluency in another language _and_," she added triumphantly to her skeptical looking friend, "I'll take the guy by surprise to get an advantage from the get go!"

"So you plan to out a man using off the radar spells using off the radar spells, and have him tried for unprovoked assault and murder by assaulting him unprovoked and risking a possible accidental murder in the process. If you could even find him."

"I can find him! I just need time. I'll come up with something!"

"Sim, did you not hear the rest of what I said? You'd end up in Azkaban for a stunt like this. You need to let it go. Let the authorities handle this and go clear your head. Your father-"

"_Biological_ father," she corrected coldly, but he went on as if she hadn't spoken.

"-has a point. You're not going to get over your grief if you feed it like this."

Sim muttered something he didn't catch before storming off, stubborn as the day was long, and at first she was angry. At first she just wanted to punch him and Snape and scream until her lungs gave out that Death Eaters were out there circling and they had a plan and only she knew it. These thoughts were not separate sentences but one big long one, a trickle of water turning into a waterfall, a flood, anger finally giving way to worry, anxiety, sharp stabs of pain through her mind. What if she couldn't find the Death Eater? What if he got away with it? What if the rumors were true and a second Wizarding War was coming? A war was coming and she hadn't been able to help with everything she knew. So useless, she was so useless. She was a skinny nobody who threw up like a baby and couldn't brew a Potion to save her life and Merlin help her, all she was trying to do was help, she just wanted to save them all. She didn't want anyone else to die like that. If only she'd known healing magic like Qendrim she could have saved her mother but she hadn't.

She couldn't save her mother. She couldn't save the wizarding world. She couldn't even keep herself calm. Frustrated, hating herself for not being as bright and talented as a Slytherin should be, at a loss as to what to do next, she wandered through the castle until she found a girl's bathroom to hide in. The world felt like it was crashing down. She'd been so sure Professor Snape would help her. That Qendrim would be behind her. But everything she'd been sure of had failed her and the first week of school wasn't even over yet. Everything in her twisted, and she reached for her bag, where she still had slipped the now five vials of Calming Potion that Qendrim had given her. He'd told her never to take more than one in six hours. The effects normally lasted eight hours, sometimes ten, so it was advice she'd never even needed before. Right now, staring down at the comforting dandelion colored glow of the potions, she wondered if she could bend the rules just once. Snape had talked to her before lunch, it was after classes now, that was nearly four hours if she rounded it up. Another one couldn't hurt. And it was just this once. Just so she could get back to her dorm without throwing up and getting another lecture from the prefects.

The cooling flow of the lighter-than-water liquid slipped down her throat in an instant, and before she knew it the vial was empty, and she made her way back to her room without noticing the sway in her steps or the way she couldn't quite remember what she'd been upset about.

* * *

Dawn found her with a new plan.

She'd have Ivalu have an ear to the ground about all info about Voldemort that she could from her position in Gryffindor. After all, Harry Potter was the Boy Who Lived and he was in her House. She ought to be able to come up with a nugget of useful information. Akakios was Pureblood of the highest caliber, five hundred years confirmed lineage, so he would have to be the one listening for any talk of Death Eaters for her. She paid him for it but his concern outweighed his confusion as he agreed to it; Sim would explain it to him later. She'd spent three years talking to him and trusted him not to be a Death Eater himself, he was too gentle spirited and caring for it. Thankfully others didn't know him that well and might slip up in front of him. This would at least get her a name list to go off of once some time had passed.

In the meantime, even if she wasn't sure if her magic could be tracked by the Ministry, she knew within Hogwarts bounds they didn't track it. So it was time for her to learn how to sneak out at night and go into the forest. The spells she had that weren't ice or water based were things she could never practice on a human. Qendrim had told her once he wasn't sure if some of the things she came up with counted as Dark Art magic or not. Sim didn't care. She was a soldier in training for the day that her enemy was located. She had a plan now. She would do her homework, go practice her normal and class assigned spells alike, and by night train in the other magic not suitable for daylight hours. Sim may have been a skinny little nobody, but that was what she was counting on. Nobody expected the skinny little nobody to be packing any kind of magical heat.

She needed to refine her normal magic and non-ice based magic in case the Death Eater recognized her when he saw her. He would doubtless have prepared for it in advance if he had connected her surname to her mother's and looked into her background. 'Dark' magic or not, she would need it to win against him when she found him. She spent her Charms class taking detailed notes and actually made an effort in History Of Magic when they covered Medieval magic, writing down terms she could look up in the library. Old spells might be useful to her, too. She had to focus or thoughts of her mother would creep in and she would break down. Simone Connor did not do breakdowns. Her pride couldn't tolerate them, her self esteem was broken by them, and she would fall back into self hatred like yesterday.

Simone begged off a book of spells from Ivalu, who reminded her she would have to translate the instructions from Danish into English in order to use the Greenlandic spells, which she was likely to mispronounce. She shrugged and went to the library at lunch, picking up a book on translation charms. It was as she left there, weighed down with Qendrim's old Albanian spell book, Ivalu's Greenlandic one, a book on the history of curses and a book on how emotions effected spell casting that she ran into Professor Snape, glowering at her with disapproval. She walked right past him without any hesitation, already tired of arguing with him before they even spoke.

"I don't have time for this," she informed him, tone all business. "Shouldn't you be off coddling Malfoy?"

"You are ignoring my wishes," Snape said, falling into step beside her. She increased her pace, irritated, but a vague ghost of a smile came over her face.

"Under the rules, no Professor can ban a student from studying spells on their grade level. You never told me not to do this. I'm ignoring _no_ wishes of yours here." As a concession, she added, "I'll give you that I'm not getting lunch today, but that's because lunch is the least supervised meal in the Great Hall and I have zero desire to have my food hexed. If I don't test it first, I don't eat it. Dinner will come around soon enough."

He walked behind her for a staircase and a stretch of hallway before grabbing her shoulder. "Simone-"

"Miss Connor."

"_Simone_, I can accept that learning foreign magic is out of my jurisdiction. But as your Head of House I am within my rights to order you to eat. Put your books your bag, and come with me to my office. I assure you, my food is neither hexed nor laced with anything suspect." He looked into her eyes and was startled to find not hatred there like yesterday, but suspicion. She genuinely did not trust him not to have put a potion into her food. Somehow that slapped him across the face emotionally. Was this how scared of the world his daughter was? Was this how little she could trust anyone, even Professors and family? He needed to research into the depths of just how she had been bullied, something she should already know. "At least have a few biscuits."

She teetered, looking torn, but her expression hardened. _I am a soldier in the pre-emptive war against Voldemort. I can't let anything distract me._ "I'm sorry, sir, but I'll have to ignore that offer. Give me detention if you want. This is too much too soon and we both know it." It was. To sit there eating with him like he was an old pal would be impossible. It would only end in an argument, with yesterday's wound of rejection so fresh to her.

"Very well, S- Miss Connor," he said, looking utterly defeated for a moment before his back straightened and he grew determined to try again. "You will instead have to take a new partner in Potions."

_Akakios could use that to his advantage, talk to his fellow Purebloods, make some allies. This plays right into my plan now. You might be useful after all, 'father'._ "Fine by me. I'll partner with whoever will take me. Will that be all, sir?" She felt guilty using him when he was trying to reconnect, but he wasn't forgiven yet. Not after three years of this. Disregarding yesterday, there was a lot she wanted an apology for. A simple 'I'm sorry' would mend so much, and yet he had not uttered the two words that would truly start to break down the walls between them.

He was annoyed his attempt at a trump card hadn't worked, but unable to come up with anything else, he ground out, "That will be all, Miss Connors."

* * *

It was dark, and the sounds of the forest were unnatural and unfamiliar.

Simone had wandered all of the land around Uyeasound with Ramsay as children, creeping out from their sleepovers as seven year olds, dressed in all black pretending to be spies or explorers or whatever struck their fancy. Back then she weighed what she should and they spent time peeking around trees and being awed by any bird or rodent they saw. Her eyes had been wide and cheerful, her tiny hand clutching her torch or 'flashlight' if they were pretending to be Americans that night. The Simone that walked to the edge of the forest that night was indeed clad in black from head to foot – no robes, she found the idea of fighting in them ridiculous – from her knit black jacket to her black skinny jeans tucked into her dragon skin boots. Silently, wand at the ready but never lit, she moved to the edges, looking carefully. There were paths, but she needed the one hardest to see from the castle, farthest from the light of Hagrid's hut.

The not yet half moon gave a little light, and she went forward. There was no giggling, no smiles, no childish joy here. There was no panic at being caught; she was confident in her abilities to sneak out here if she could manage getting past Filch on the way out. If she were in good humor she'd be amused by the fact that Filch was harder to deal with than whatever was out here. Tonight was not a night of good humor. Right now she had nothing in her other than darkness. Hatred for her enemy, disdain for her own failure, anger at so many people for so many past offenses all were inside her. Instead of being ready to scream, though, it settled over her like a weight, a cloak of emotions she wore around her.

It did not take long walking on the path before something stirred. She stepped back and pressed herself against the nearest tree, waiting for whatever it was to come forward. Sim strained her hearing but heard nothing behind her, only in front of her. So she stood still, barely daring to breathe, waiting. Seconds were years. Yet contrary to that, two wolf like wild dogs burst forth in front of her, their eyes glowing ominous red, transfixing. Fortunately she didn't let herself be bewitched by the eyes due to how focused she was on her created spells, the so-called 'Dark Arts' in the making she'd been crafting.

"_Irapraefuro_!" she snapped, whipping her wand at the nearest one.

The effect was instant. The black animal turned, whipping its head from side to side, ears perking, seeing and hearing things that were not there. As it growled and barked warningly at nothing, its' companion ran at her, seeing an opening. It was a blur of darkness in the dark, but a strange dark satisfaction had settled over her as soon as the first one began to twitch and stare at nothing. Vicious curiosity went through her, and she switched her aim to the target barreling towards her.

"_Tremefa Malu!_"

She'd never heard an animal have a seizure before, but it dropped like a rock, legs failing, whimpering loudly, shoulders convulsing, gasping for air before it stopped and got to its' feet. Simone stepped towards them, ready for more practice. The one that had convulsed ran as fast as it could and vanished into the forest. It hardly mattered. That spell was supposed to last longer, and the hallucinating dog had no comprehension she was drawing nearer. A pang of guilt briefly flashed through her for doing this to innocent creatures. She shook the thought away, raising her wand higher for another swipe, gray eyes hardening. _I am a soldier in training for the next war against the Dark Lord. I am an Auror in training. I am going to fight Death Eaters. This has to be done. _Her expression grew blank with anger. _Because no one would ever do this for me, not even my father, I have to do it for myself._

"_Tremefa Malu!_" she shouted, and the dog's cries eclipsed all the other sounds of the forest.


End file.
